“To grant your release at this time would so deprecate the seriousness of your offense as to undermine respect for the law,” wrote Commissioner Walter William Smith Jr. “Of significant concern is the lengthy period of deception which contributed to the grief and agony of the victim’s family and friends. ... Your actions in hiding the body, and continuing to lie about your responsibility for several months has been noted.”

Hawkins, 54, is serving a sentence of 22 years to life. A Staten Island jury convicted him of second-degree murder in February 1979.

Prosecutors said Hawkins, then 16, killed Ms. Jacobson during a quarrel in which she sought to break off from him. Hawkins then hid her body in a 55-gallon oil barrel inside an underground bunker at a former Downey’s Shipyard in Mariners Harbor.

Ms. Jacobson’s grieving family, whom Hawkins pretended to aid, searched relentlessly for her body for months. They even sought a nationally-known psychic’s help.

But her decomposed corpse wasn’t recovered for nearly two years — and then, by chance. Three boys came across Ms. Jacobson’s skeletal remains on March 25, 1978, as they were exploring in the area.

A Feb. 21, 1979, Advance story described the site as a “bleak, desolate area” off Richmond Terrace between Holland and Western avenues, near the former Procter & Gamble Co. plant.

Neighborhood residents referred to the area as “Down-back.”

Afterward, Hawkins, a native of England, was arrested in Joppa, Ill. He had gone there in April 1977 to live with his father, Advance records show.